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Category: Celebrities
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Madonna and Guy Ritchie Split
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Paul Newman Made Sure His Charities Would Outlive Him
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Paul Newman dead, at 83
Actor Paul Newman died yesterday of cancer. He was 83.
Newman was known not only for his many films, but for his philanthropic and political activities.
Newman’s Own, which manufactures salad dressings, sauces and other foods, donates profits to charities. The organization reports having given away more than $250 million since 1982. Newman was a major benefactor of his alma mater, Kenyon College.
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive map
Click to activate the interactive map (requires Java)MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.He was also a contributor to Democratic candidates such as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and wrote occasionally for the liberal magazine, The Nation.
Newman won an Oscar for his role in the 1986 movie, “The Color of Money,” and received two honorary Oscars for his contributions to film.
He is survived by his wife, Joanne Woodward, who co-starred with him in “Mr. and Mrs. Bridge” and the made-for-TV movie, “Empire Falls.”
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Stars battle proposition to bar same-sex marriage in California
Celebrities Steven Spielberg, Kate Capshaw and Brad Pitt are throwing their weight behind efforts to stop Proposition 8, the proposed amendment to again ban same-sex marriage in California.
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Click to activate the interactive map (requires Java)MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.California legalized same-sex marriages in May. Proposition 8 would reverse the California Supreme Court’s decision to allow same-sex marriages, allowing only marriage between a man and a woman.
Spielberg and his wife, Kate Capshaw, said in a statement, “By writing discrimination into our state constitution, Proposition 8 seeks to eliminate the right of each and every citizen in our state to marry regardless of sexual orientation. Such discrimination has NO place in California’s constitution, or any other.”
Spielberg and Capshaw donated $100,000 to the Vote No on 8, Equality for All campaign, matching Pitt’s contribution last week to the political organization Californians Against Eliminating Basic Rights.
Steven SpielbergIt’s not the first time Pitt has publicized his views on marriage. In an October 2006 interview, Pitt told Esquire that he and partner Angelina Jolie weren’t planning to marry until it was legal for everyone.
Many openly gay high-profile celebs have yet to donate such large amounts to the Vote No on 8 campaigns. IN magazine reports that Rosie O’Donnell, Elton John, and Melissa Etheridge have not yet contributed to the campaign.
Although Ellen DeGeneres wrote on her blog of her support for gay marriage, and therefore her choice to vote no on Proposition 8, she has yet to make a significant public contribution to the cause.
DeGeneres was one of the first high-profile celebrities to put the same-sex marriage law into practice when she married her longtime partner Portia de Rossi on August 16.
Other high-profile same-sex weddings in the last month include George Takai to Brad Altman, and Jonathan Adler to Simon Doonan.
Variety reports political groups supporting Proposition 8, which include Focus on the Family and Knights of Columbus, have raised $16.2 million, while “No on 8″ groups have only managed to collect $10.8 million.
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Shriver brings in stars for annual Women’s Conference
In her fifth year of organizing the annual Women’s Conference, California First Lady Maria Shriver has managed to pull in some big names. Tickets to the conference sold out in under three hours.
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MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.Speakers at the 2008 conference, which begins on Oct. 21, include Jennifer Lopez, Barbara Walters, Bono, Condoleezza Rice, Lance Armstrong, Michael J. Fox, Heidi Klum and Warren Beatty.
Tickets for the two-day event at the Long Beach Convention Center went on sale yesterday. The price ranges from $125-185.
The Women’s Conference is a non-profit, non-partisan event that was founded in 1991 by then-governor of California, Pete Wilson.
This year’s event will include talks, book signings, forums and conversations between speakers, although the pairings have yet to be announced.
For the first time, Shriver has also organized a pre-conference event, Night at The Village, at which Shriver and Rachael Ray will speak and hold a book-signing.
Shriver says, “The Village is our answer to a call from women for more time to just be – whether it is to mingle casually, network for work, or shop around for items and experiences that will enrich their mind, body and soul.”
The Minerva Awards will also be presented at the conference and will feature a performance by Bonnie Raitt.
The Minerva Awards recognize women who have “recognized a problem or challenge, identified a solution, and pursued it with courage, perseverance and compassion.” Last year, Maria Shriver’s mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and Nancy Pelosi were among the winners.
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Christie Brinkley gets kids & Hamptons house; Cook gets $2.1 million
Christie Brinkley’s fourth divorce has finally reached a settlement.
After an all-night negotiation between their lawyers, Peter Cook and Christie Brinkley’s heated divorce trial came to an end yesterday morning.
Brinkley was awarded sole custody of her children, Jack, 13, and Sailor, 10. She was also given all 18 of the properties she shared with Cook in the Hamptons. Cook will be paid $2.1 million and will also get “parenting time” with the children.
Brinkley went into the trial with high-profile divorce lawyer Robert Stephen Cohen, who has also represented Ron Perelman. Elliot Mintz is Brinkley’s public relations representative; he also works with Paris Hilton.
The marriage ended in 2006, when Brinkley discovered that Cook was having an affair with Diana Bianchi, a teenager who worked as Cook’s personal assistant.
Cook admitted to paying Bianchi to remain quiet about their affair. Bianchi sued Cook in April, 2007, and settled out of court.
The Brinkley/Cook divorce trial was open to the public and continued to make headlines as more salacious details about the couple’s relationship were revealed.
Brinkley admitted to coloring her ex-husband’s face with magic marker in a wedding photo and said she would not have married Cook if she had known the details of his drug arrest when he was in his 20s.
Cook commented that Brinkley’s testimony was fabricated; telling People “Shrek was more believable.”
A court-appointed psychiatrist weighed in on the former couple, advising that both Brinkley and Cook were in need of therapy.
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In an Absolut World, you can be Kanye West (Muckety)
Absolut Vodka and Kanye West are testing the power of viral marketing by releasing a spoof infomercial online.
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MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.BeKanyeNow.com, the website for Absolut’s newest celebrity endorsement campaign, features West starring in an ad for “Be Kanye,” a fictional pill that the rapper says will turn you into him.
The concept is that “In an Absolut World,” anyone could become Kanye West. However, the tablet is a goof; the ad plugs Absolut, even though the campaign slogan “In an Absolut World” is only mentioned once in the video.
The website is hosted by Absolut, and requires legal age verification to enter.
Absolut is also a sponsor of West’s Glow in the Dark Tour, currently in progress, to support his Grammy-winning album, Graduation.
The “In an Absolute World” campaign features other celebrity endorsers, including Zach Galifianakis, a comedian who also spoofed Kanye West’s video “Can’t Tell Me Nothing.”
Galifianakis, who did the Funny or Die Comedy Tour with Will Ferrell, teamed up with comedy duo Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim of the Adult Swim program Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! for his Absolut commercial.
Absolut also features “In an Absolut World” slogans by the websites Thrillist (”In an Absolut World all your spam would be true” and TreeHugger (”In an Absolut World everything would be downloadable”) and the nonprofit organization Live Earth Concerts for the Climate Crisis (”In an Absolut World none of these films would be necessary”).
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DeNiro asks for forgiveness, not permission, in hotel construction
Despite all he’s done to build up the New York’s Tribeca neighborhood, Robert DeNiro is having a run-in with the city Landmarks Commission.
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MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.DeNiro’s Greenwich Hotel, at 377 Greenwich Street, could have its top floor dismantled, according to the New York Daily News. New York’s Landmarks Commission determined that the hotel’s penthouse apartment did not comply with the specifications it claimed it would meet when the addition of the top floor of the hotel was approved for construction in 2004.
After completion, the building was steeper and more visible from the street than its plans outlined. DeNiro plans to ask the commission to retroactively approve the building’s current dimensions.
DeNiro, a native New Yorker, is known for his revitalization of Tribeca and the Hollywood connections he has brought with him to the neighborhood.
For starters, he is a restaurateur, investing in the Tribeca Grill, next door to the hotel. Additional investors include Bill Murray, Ed Harris, Sean Penn, Russell Simmons, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Christopher Walken and Harvey Weinstein.
DeNiro also is an investor in New York restaurant hot spot Nobu, which has a location in Tribeca as well as on 57th street. In 2010, DeNiro plans to open Nobu Hotel and Residences.
The Tribeca Film Festival was co-founded by DeNiro, along with his partners Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff. The festival’s website outlines DeNiro’s mission to “spur the economic and cultural revitalization of lower Manhattan” after September 11 by highlighting New York as a film-making capital throughout the annual two-week festival.
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Christina Aguilera Croons to Infant Son in Rock the Vote Video
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Beyond the grave: Sinatra still has Muckety
Frank Sinatra is as cool as ever.
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive map
MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.Today a new U.S. postage stamp commemorating the Chairman of the Board goes on sale. Although Sinatra died 10 years ago today, his name continues to sell not only stamps, but music, movies and other products.
Frank Sinatra stampTurner Classic Movies is dedicating prime-time programming to him on Sundays and Wednesdays through May. Warner Home Video is releasing four sets of his films today.
The Clooney-Pitt version of Ocean’s Eleven, along with its sequels, has acquainted a new generation to the original rat pack of the 1960s. The wonders of 21st-century technology enabled Alicia Keys to perform a duet with Sinatra at the Grammy Awards show in February.
While his talents assure him a permanent place in modern culture, the current wave of popularity is about much more than nostalgia.
In November, his heirs and Warner Music Group formed a company called Frank Sinatra Enterprises LLC. The firm will manage the Sinatra name in a range of ventures, possibly including a Broadway show and a casino.
The Sinatra name is not just a powerful brand. It also has great demographics.
As Jimmy Edwards, head of Frank Sinatra Enterprises, told the Los Angeles Times, “Frank opens the door to a very exclusive club. He crosses so many zones too; he’s working-class, but he also runs around with the country-club set.”
“The amazing thing is how untapped all of it is,” Tina Sinatra, the singer’s younger daughter, told the Times. “By design we have done very little, particularly once he died.”
Sinatra himself formed a company late in life, called Artanis (Sinatra spelled backwards) Foods, to manufacture and market spaghetti sauce. Investors at the time included Pia Zadora and Annette Funicello.
Yet his heirs may be trying to manage a market that is beyond control. The nearly 2,000 Sinatra-branded products offered on eBay this morning included Frank Sinatra wristwatches, Frank Sinatra dolls (description: “It says Mattel 1975 on the butt”), a Frank Sinatra fan parking sign, Frank Sinatra Christmas ornaments, a Frank Sinatra music box shaped like a golf bag, and a CD of Frank Sinatra declassified FBI files.
Other web sites market a Cuban cigar called the “Sinatra Belicoso Torpedo.”
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Jay-Z cuts 2 deals – with Live Nation & Beyonce
Jay-Z has had a big week. The rapper is expected to finalize a contract with Live Nation records soon worth $150 million. If that weren’t enough to celebrate, last night he reportedly married his superstar girlfriend, Beyonce Knowles.
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MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.A source reports to People magazine that the couple married last night at and celebrated at Jay-Z’s New York penthouse apartment with a small group of family and friends, including Beyonce’s former Destiny’s Child band members and celebs like Gwyneth Paltrow and husband Chris Martin.
Although the couple has yet to confirm their marriage officially, they were spotted last week in Scarsdale, NY obtaining a marriage license.
In addition to paying Jay-Z $25 million up front, Live Nation would also finance his future endeavors, including any talent consulting, clothing lines, tours, albums, and record labels that the rapper would work on in the future. The conglomeration of Jay-Z’s efforts would be labeled Roc Nation. The company would then split future profits with Jay-Z.
Jay-Z is known for his entrepreneurial success outside of the music business. He has made significant achievements in both the fashion and nightlife industries. He founded Roc-a-wear, a clothing line he sold for $204 million last year. He also started his own nightclub, the 40/40 club, which now has locations in New York, Atlanta, and Las Vegas.
Although Jay-Z still owes another album to Def Jam records, where he held the position of president until December 2007, he will be paid $10 million per record by Live Nation. His contract will require three albums from Jay-Z in the next ten years.
This deal will further cement Jay-Z’s departure from his self-proclaimed retirement. In 2003, when he released The Black Album, Jay-Z announced it would be his last studio album. In 2006, he released the album Kingdom Come, which he followed with American Gangster, an album meant to accompany the Denzel Washington film.
Live Nation will ink the long-term deal with Jay-Z even though his last album, American Gangster, did not garner the same success of his previous records, selling about one third the number of records that The Black Album sold. Jay-Z refused to release American Gangster on iTunes because believed the album should be purchased as a whole and not by individual tracks.
This is the third major deal Live Nation has made with a top recording artist. The company signed a similar deal with with Madonna in 2007 and another with U2 earlier this week, worth $120 and $300 million, respectively.
Related posts on Muckety- Henry Cisneros, Madonna and the Big O – October 19, 2007
- 50 Cent-Kanye and other feuds ignite Grammys – December 10, 2007
- Muckety This! Beyonce to Mario Batali – April 8, 2008
- Josh Brolin has several reasons to watch Oscars – January 23, 2008
- Muckety this! Madonna to Dalton Trumbo – March 23, 2008
- Smoke gets in Bono’s eyes – May 16, 2007
- Bill Gates yuks it up at CES 2008 – January 8, 2008
- Matt Damon, George Clooney and other sexy men – November 22, 2007
- Songwriter has more than a feeling about Huckabee – February 16, 2008
This post is tagged with: 40/40 club, American Gangster, Beyonce Knowles, Chris Martin, Def Jam records, Denzel Washington, Destiny’s Child Gwyneth Paltrow, iTunes, Jay-Z, Kingdom Come, Live Nation, Madonna, Roc Nation, Roc-a-wear, The Black Album, U2Read related stories: Celebs · Entertainment · Music
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Anna Nicole Smith’s daughter named her heir
A year after her death, Anna Nicole Smith’s legal affairs are finally starting to be resolved.
Smith’s daughter Dannielynn was officially named as the sole heir of her estate yesterday. Judge Mitchell L. Beckloff also set up a trust in Dannielynn’s name, with Larry Birkhead and Howard K. Stern named as co-trustees.
Stern and Birkhead faced off in court last year to determine paternity and custody of Dannielynn. Although the court ruled that Stern had no relation to the baby, he remains involved as Anna Nicole’s former lawyer and as the executor of her estate. Dannielynn currently lives in Los Angeles with father Larry Birkhead.
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive map
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(requires Java)MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.Smith’s will had named her late son, Daniel Smith, as her heir. Daniel died unexpectedly after an accidental drug overdose in September 2006 and Anna Nicole did not update her will before she died in February 2007.
The court’s decision doesn’t make the toddler a multi-millionaire, yet. Dannielynn is in a position that could prove lucrative depending on the result of the ongoing court proceedings to determine the rightful heirs of Anna Nicole’s late husband, oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II.
After Marshall died in 1995, his son, E. Pierce Marshall, began legal proceedings to challenge Anna Nicole’s inheritance of the family fortune. Although E. Pierce Marshall passed away in 2006, the court battle has yet to be settled.
Dannielynn will inherit millions if Anna Nicole is named beneficiary.
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